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Saving Tip: Stop Smoking27 02 06 12  21
-------- It costs you more than you think.(The Carnival of Personal Finance #37 is up on the Money Blog Network, a network of blogs that I certainly recommend you read. Its advice encouraged me to write this article) Smoking costs a lot of money. For the median American family that earns shorts of $43,000 a year a smoker in their family may be the culprit for not allowing them to make ends meet. Smoking costs come disguised as other kinds of costs. Lets break them up and see how they quickly add up:
Buying cigarettes can really add up. If someone smokes half a pack a day and a pack costs $5, that's $913 per year wasted. If it's a pack a day, that's $1,825. And if it's two packs a day, that's $3,650 -- all money that's literally gone up in smoke. ( Free Money Finance )The January issue of Money magazine (source is the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) says that: “The average smoker pays $1,600 more annually, on average, on health-care costs than a non-smoker.” According to eHealthInsurance.com, the monthly premium for a policy from Regence Blue Shield with a $1,500 deductible for a 44-year-old male nonsmoker is $198. The same policy for a smoker is $229 per month. He will pay nearly $372 more per year. And according to Colin Bell on the Cigarette Smoking and the Health Industry the health insurance premiums in 1996 for a 35 year old male was $872/1,207 (non-smoker/smoker) and for a 55 year old male it was $2,162/4,805. That is from $335 to $2,643 more a year. What about light smokers? Insurance companies like RBC Insurance count them as just “smokers”, it doesn’t matter if it is one cigarette a year or two packs a day: “You qualify for non-smoker rates only if you have not used any form of tobacco products within the last 12 months. If you occasionally smoke or if you have quit smoking in the last 12 months, you are considered a smoker.” However, if you do not stop smoking I will not be mad at you. After all, I believe the strength of the Altria ( MO ) / Phillip Morris advertisement message is so strong that most people get hooked and can’t quit. I own 300 shares on Altria ( MO ) just for that purpose, so that those who don’t want to quit or can’t quit can still pay me some money. The current 4.4% dividend yield offered by Altria ( MO ) tops the ones offered by financial companies, and it and compensates me for some of all the second hand smoke I may inhale and some of the increased public healthcare spending that I have to pay in the way of taxes. There are other ways on which you can improve your health and finances at the same time. I have posted an article about it. |